Denyce Graves sings her swan song on Met stage

""I had never heard many other genres of music and certainly not opera. That was as foreign and as strange as anything could possibly be," Graves said in recalling that day she spent listening to Price recordings hours on end with a friend. "But also to see this woman who looked like us, who looked like a queen... and we heard this type of singing that just split you in half... I was forever changed the moment I heard her.""

"Now, at 61, Graves is bidding farewell to the stage, taking her final bow on Jan. 24 at the Metropolitan Opera, in her turn as Maria in the Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. It's a secondary role in an opera composed and written by white men, filled with demeaning stereotypes of Black life. The nearly century-old work has also historically served as a platform for African American singers who otherwise struggled to make a break in a white-dominated industry."

Denyce Graves first heard Leontyne Price at age 13 and was profoundly transformed, which set her on an operatic path. Graves has performed major roles such as Dalila and Carmen and made an international career at houses in Paris, London, Munich, Vienna and Zurich. Her final staged appearance will be Jan. 24 at the Metropolitan Opera as Maria in Porgy and Bess, the same opera that launched her first professional contract in 1985 at Tulsa Opera. Porgy and Bess contains demeaning racial stereotypes yet historically provided a platform for African American singers. Graves regards the Met as the pinnacle of opera.

Read at www.npr.org